Columbus at Vancouver

Blue Jackets 3, Canucks 2 (SO)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Columbus coach
Ken Hitchcock left Nikolai Zherdev in the press box three games ago. He
wasn't going to leave him on the bench in a shootout.

Given a chance at redemption, the struggling forward bounced back from
his Jan. 19 benching and scored the winning goal of the shootout Tuesday
night. His shot bounced off Roberto Luongo's glove and gave the Blue
Jackets to a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

"He's going to score on a shootout 70 percent of the time, he's so
skilled and he's so patient with the puck," Hitchcock said.

After Brendan Morrison and David Vyborny traded shootout goals, Ty
Conklin stopped Josh Green in the third round, giving Zherdev the chance
to win it.

He did exactly that, but Hitchcock praised Zherdev more for his
all-around performance. Zherdev is fighting a flu bug that kept him out
of the Blue Jackets previous game on Saturday and forced him to leave
Monday's practice early.

That's a big step for Zherdev, who threatened to stay in Russia this
season before signing a three-year, $7.5-million contract with Columbus.
But he had just seven goals, 20 points and a minus-17 rating before
being left out of the lineup before the All-Star break.

"If he plays like this every night we're going to very pleased and
that's kind of the message we want to send him and I think he's taking
it the right way," Hitchcock said.

Dan Fritsche and Anson Carter scored in regulation, and Conklin made 35
saves overall as Columbus won its fourth straight against a quality
opponent.

"We're showing a lot of mental toughness, we're not giving up too many
odd-man rushes and we're getting solid goaltending," Carter said. "When
you put those things together, more often than not you should come out
with a victory."

Coming off wins over Detroit, Buffalo and Minnesota, Carter opened the
scoring just 18 seconds in. Carter, who scored 33 goals for Vancouver
last season, jammed his 200th NHL goal past Luongo from close range.

"It's a great milestone but I think even more importantly it was a big
victory for us starting off a three-game road trip," Carter said.

Daniel Sedin and Sami Salo scored power-play goals, and Luongo made 26
saves for the Canucks, who lost for the fourth time in 15 games since
falling to Columbus on Dec. 22. Three of the losses were in overtime or
a shootout, as Vancouver stayed tied with Calgary atop the Northwest
Division.

Sedin tied it on a power-play rebound 13:51 in, but Fritsche scored for
the fourth straight game to restore the lead on a man advantage two
minutes later. The goal also ended a string of 34 straight penalty kills
over six games for Vancouver's top-ranked unit.

Fritsche's first attempt, after driving hard to the net out of the
corner, was almost shot into the Vancouver net by Canucks forward Marc
Chouinard. Luongo did well just to stop his teammate before scrambling
to knock the puck off the goal line -- only to swat it back to Fritsche
alone at the top of the crease for an easy goal.

"They were crashing the net all night, that was part of their game
plan," Luongo said. "They got a couple lucky goals in the first period
and after that we did a pretty good job."

Salo tied it again midway through the second period on a one-timer from
the right point that went through Taylor Pyatt's screen and beat Conklin
low stick side.

Conklin, starting just his third NHL game of the season because Pascal
Leclaire (knee) and Fredrik Norrena (groin) are injured, had to be sharp
early. He stopped Jan Bulis twice on good chances and Salo on a close
blast in the first period.

"It was nice because you get a little confidence, you feel better about
yourself, especially shaking off the rust," Conklin said. "It's always
nice to get going right away. But we played well, I wasn't forced to
make more than a handful of second saves and the ones I did were pretty
routine."

Notes

Columbus improved to 16-1-4 when scoring first. Luongo was the first
star in his previous five starts. ... Columbus D Rostislav Klesla, who
was picked fourth overall in the 2000 draft, played his 300th NHL game.
... Vancouver was 11-1-2 between losses to Columbus on Dec. 22 and
Tuesday despite failing to outshoot any opponent. The Canucks held a
37-28 shots advantage.

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